Event-Driven Architecture
A software design pattern where AI agents are triggered by events (new lead submitted, support ticket created, payment received, document uploaded) rather than running on fixed schedules or manual invocation. Events flow through message brokers or webhooks, and agents respond in real time. This architecture enables reactive, low-latency automation—agents act when things happen rather than polling for changes.
Written by Max Zeshut
Founder at Agentmelt · Last updated Sep 9, 2026
Example
When a prospect fills out a demo request form (event), the event triggers a chain: an enrichment agent adds company data, a scoring agent evaluates fit, a routing agent assigns the lead to the right sales rep, and an outreach agent drafts a personalized response—all within 60 seconds of form submission.
Frequently asked questions
- How do events trigger AI agents?
- Common patterns: webhooks from SaaS tools (Stripe, HubSpot, Zendesk send HTTP notifications), message queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS for high-volume events), database triggers (new row inserted triggers agent), and scheduled polling with change detection (agent checks for new items every N seconds). Webhooks are the simplest for most integrations; message queues add reliability at scale.